Today I went back to the garage after work. Still sitting at -24*C when the sun goes down. My dad's on winter vacation and been keeping the fire going. It's the only way to be able to get paint to dry at this time of year.

Before I inspected the paint, I dropped off today's haul. I had stopped by a PC repair company, and got 11 used 'HP 6cell' packs for next to nothing. Hoping to make it a regular salvage location, fingers crossed

Back to the car, this is the freshly coated and lightened bumper bar.

And here is the front. Feels good to see progress.

Here is a section i treated in a different way. The visible parts wont get that thick brushed on paint, here I applied normal gloss spray paint. No more relay boxes here either

Remember the nasty windscreen cowl? I thoroughly cleaned it out, and applied a nice coating of Rostex. The intake air for the cabin is gonna be so fresh, with no more dirt mixed in it

Been slacking off a bit, since the weather is so hostile. Anyways, here's what arrived in the mail last friday. 800grams of plastic cellholders. This is the 4x5 variety, should be more sturdy for automotive use

After unwrapping it and cleaning up the bench a bit. I noticed most people stack untested cells in some type of shelf. Seems to be very space efficient

I also tried reviving some dead cells. Anything above 0.1V, but below 2.0V is considered dead by most chargers. The Nightcore chargers flash these cells as 'EE' on the display, and simply wont charge them.

However, the Opus can slowly nudge them back to life, by carefully charging them at 1-50mA, and bumping it up to 200mA once they pass approx 2.2V. It is important to slowly restore these dead cells, atleast most of forum posts seem to say that rapidly charging dead cells will make them loose most of their capacity. After reviving these cells, they landed at 1600mAh, still too bad to be used in this project.

But a purpose they will have. I am starting a separate project for the cells that fall in the 1500->2000mAh category, they will power our offgrid summer cottage situated on an island in the Finnish archipelago. Might even have to make a separate thread for it

I just briefly went into the garage, and unbolted the fenders from the front bumper.

There was quite some rust lurking under the front lower lip spoiler. This would have quickly turned them into swiss cheese untreated!

Nice project
what are your thoughts on electrical part ? how much you plan to draw frow 18650 and what pack sizes ... dc/dc converter charger
just curies because my project is in some sense also EV : Prius upgrade to plugin : 18650 count now is ~1000 (2000mAh+) ~1500 in testing process.

(03-11-2018, 12:14 AM)EGOksy Wrote: Nice project
what are your thoughts on electrical part ? how much you plan to draw frow 18650 and what pack sizes ... dc/dc converter charger
just curies because my project is in some sense also EV : Prius upgrade to plugin : 18650 count now is ~1000 (2000mAh+) ~1500 in testing process.

Thanks : I want to get atleast 2000cells, but the actual pack configuration is still to be defined. I guess pieces will start to fall together once I know which motor I will be using. Prius upgrade sounds nice, got a project thread link?

Today I thought it would be worthwhile to get more familiar with the suspension currently on the car. Most components will be replaced, some are in a more critical state than others.

Here's what the steering rack boots look like. Not good, corrosion is starting to take effect on the LH side. This needs fixing stat!

Went to the local autopartstore Motonet, which surprisingly had both the LH/RH side boots, and also the tie rod ends on the shelf. The boots cost only 7€ each! On Ebay the cheapest ones would have been +30€, score!

Here's the before and after. I spent a great deal of time, cleaning all threads, cleaning up the rack gears, re-greasing it and repainting the exposed parts. The tie rod ends had a split in the rubber, so it was good to get them replaced as-well.

how do you plan on powering the hydraulic power steering?, you might be better off getting a salvaged EPS rack Electronic Power Steering, like on >2002 MK7 Honda Civics and most modern VW Golfs have EPS so it would just be just a cylindrical 12v motor to power and not a hydraulic pump running all the time you are using the car. I would think it would be much more energy efficient.

(03-12-2018, 12:30 PM)Amigaman Wrote: how do you plan on powering the hydraulic power steering?, you might be better off getting a salvaged EPS rack Electronic Power Steering, like on >2002 MK7 Honda Civics and most modern VW Golfs have EPS so it would just be just a cylindrical 12v motor to power and not a hydraulic pump running all the time you are using the car. I would think it would be much more energy efficient.

(03-11-2018, 12:14 AM)EGOksy Wrote: Nice project
what are your thoughts on electrical part ? how much you plan to draw frow 18650 and what pack sizes ... dc/dc converter charger
just curies because my project is in some sense also EV : Prius upgrade to plugin : 18650 count now is ~1000 (2000mAh+) ~1500 in testing process.

Thanks : I want to get atleast 2000cells, but the actual pack configuration is still to be defined. I guess pieces will start to fall together once I know which motor I will be using. Prius upgrade sounds nice, got a project thread link?

No .. have no thread : but maybe will do that, so that i could spam my own thread not others
keep it up '' I'll be watching